On a Spindle
by Elliptic Eye
Summary: Reid finds out what Hotch likes. Hotch never does, quite.


**Warnings: **dubcon/noncon, somnophilia, major themes of objectification

Written for the Criminal Minds kinkmeme, where the prompt was: _Hotch/Reid or Morgan/Reid, dubcon, bottom!Reid… somnophilia._ I did my best.

Huge, huge thanks to my betas Madelf and Bluerosefairy. They are both awesome beyond ken.

* * *

On a Spindle

It was five o'clock in the evening by the time Hotch made it out of the hospital with Reid, and nearly seven by the time they were pulling up at his subordinate's apartment complex. They always did go to Reid's.

Hotch glanced over at the passenger seat as he cut the engine. Reid had slipped from quiet to asleep at some point; he stirred when Hotch gave his arm a gentle shake. Shouldering his go bag, Hotch gathered their odds and ends from the back seat and went around to collect Reid, who was rubbing at his eyes and fumbling for the door latch. Anthrax attacked the lungs, not the legs, and Hotch knew that Reid had no use for people's hovering, but he never had mastered the skill of giving Reid his space the way Gideon had. So he opened the door for him and then stood and felt foolish about it.

"I can carry some of those," said Reid, voice scratchy.

Hotch blinked and surrendered a token bag.

They trudged to the door in silence, Reid shivering in his cardigan. Quietly—old habit, both of them were too used to coming home at odd hours—Hotch questioned Reid on the contents of his medicine cabinet and pantry while he hunted through Reid's bundle for the right key. He got the door open and ushered Reid before him into the dark warmth.

The first thing Hotch did after he'd gotten Reid installed on the couch was get out of his suit. It was why he'd brought his go bag; he didn't keep things in Reid's closet. When he came back out to the living room, Reid was struggling to keep his eyes open over one of the notepads from his ever-present messenger bag with CSPAN on mute. The circles under his eyes were bruise-dark and he was pale, even paler than usual, his pallor was accentuated by the deep shadows cast by the long bones and sinews that stood out just that little bit more sharply after a hospital stint. He looked awful, in a photogenic way. As with Haley, Hotch could never tell whether it was the appearance of delicacy or the deceptiveness of it that kept him looking.

Hotch gave in to the compulsion to refold the skewed afghan over the back of the loveseat. It was the sort of little thing he had no occasion to do at his own place, and the sort of thing he could more believably do when he was wearing a sweatshirt instead of a suit jacket. Reid, of course, always wore the same thing no matter what, but he always seemed to understand the distinction in Hotch. It wasn't necessarily an easier interaction. Just different.

Reid yawned and got up, mumbling something and rubbing at his wrist.

"I'll fix us something to eat," Hotch said. "You awake enough to shower without passing out?" He was only half-joking.

Reid wrapped one hand around his opposite biceps, a bit primly. Showering together was one of the things they Didn't Do. "I'm awake, Hotch."

Even when he was in Reid's apartment in a paint-stained Beatles sweatshirt, they still used surnames. Hotch suspected that their compartmentalization might be a little off.

Soup was about as much effort as Hotch felt like making after two hours of Beltway traffic, and Reid had claimed to have some. So while the water ran down the hall, Hotch took on someone else's kitchen.

Hotch opened cupboard after cupboard, at sea. Haley had kept their kitchen organized and sensible, and Aaron had stuck with her system after she'd left because he liked being able to figure out where the hell the can opener was without ransacking the place. Haley loved to cook; Aaron did, too, when he got the time, and between the two of them that kitchen had been the thing about their new house that they'd been proudest of, right after the nursery. He could still remember Haley christening it: They'd been moving boxes all day, didn't get to a stopping-point until about one a.m. and Haley had been just getting over flu besides, but she had insisted that she was going to make them _something_ in their new kitchen before they turned in. Aaron had gone to investigate and found Haley in her nightgown, cutting up something on the granite counter in the dim golden light of the track fixture he'd installed himself. She'd turned and held out her hand, ghostly pale and with circles under her eyes, but smiling. Aaron had been able to smell ripe plum. He'd bent and eaten it from her palm.

Reid's kitchen had formica countertops and fluorescent lighting, and while it was true there were about fifty cans of Campbell's in it, they were distributed across four different cupboards. Hotch finally found the can opener inside a pot.

When he brought two steaming bowls back out to the living room, Reid was sitting Indian-style on the couch with wet hair dripping onto his notepad. He gazed dreamily into the depths of a glass paperweight as he turned it over in his left hand while his pen wavered over the paper; Hotch leant over to steal a look at what he'd been writing and Reid let him.

There were plenty of random loops. In the middle of the page, connected by vague arrows and squiggly lines, were words and phrases in no apparent order: _paraphilia – necessity (perceived necessity (no other kind)) – control requires choices — most offenders conspicuously choose to harm (C.H.), but some enac. their version of caretaking (Fox) – duck, duck, boojum – maybe Dr. L would collab.? – έ/θ, sex/death conjunction a mordant (dye), this is why it's permanent – evolve into rigidity_. In the margin there was a spindly doodle of what seemed to be a lizard-pelican.

Hotch sank down into the overstuffed seat beside him, and Reid shook himself a bit and traded the paperweight for a soup bowl. He smiled his thanks briefly, a real smile. So did Hotch. It was nice, sitting and decompressing a bit, smelling Reid's clean skin and watching a news story that had nothing to do with them.

The past few days were catching up with Hotch and Reid was fading fast, so once the soup was gone they both headed for the bedroom without a word. Hotch opened the ziplock bag of medications with their lingering hospital-smell and scanned Dr. Kimura's discharge orders as Reid changed into pajama bottoms across the room. Kimura had dispensed a hefty non-narcotic cocktail to help him sleep through the discomfort, and Hotch tapped tablets of diphenhydramine out of the bottle onto the nightstand one at a time: one hundred milligrams—one hundred twenty-five—one hundred fifty.

When he delved into his go bag for his own sleepwear, Reid paused. "You staying?"

Hotch straightened. "Was going to."

After a moment, Reid stepped over and kissed him, closed-mouth on the lips. It was a pleasant surprise; Reid wasn't good at initiating contact. Hotch brought his hands just up to Reid's waist, stroking his thumbs over the skin and moving his lips over Reid's. Then he pushed Reid toward the bed with a gentle hand on his back.

While the mattress creaked and the sheets whispered, Hotch finished changing and killed the light.

One of the lights, anyway. He was surprised on flipping the switch to find that there was still a dim glow in the room. It came from a bare bulb strung over the desk.

Hotch walked over to it, frowning—he couldn't remember seeing it when he was here last, though that had been… oh, weeks ago. Before Adam Jackson. It was just a small, bare, clear glass bulb hanging on a naked wire that swung gently when Hotch touched it. It looked as though Reid had put it in himself, but it barely gave enough light to read by even if one sat in the hard wooden chair immediately below it.

Hotch started to ask what it was, but when he turned, he saw that Reid was already asleep. There was no switch for the bulb, that Hotch could find, so after a moment he shrugged and joined Reid under the covers.

Presently he was able to get himself settled, far enough from the back of Reid's head to be able to breathe and close enough to be able to slip an arm around his waist. That Reid didn't even stir as Hotch churned the bed things getting situated was a testament to how far under Kimura's potion had put him.

Reid's hair was still damp and drying on the pillow. Hotch touched it. Light brown. It might have been anything from a darker shade to blond, in the amber light. Reid had Haley's coloring.

Hotch fell asleep.

* * *

He awoke barely two hours later. He was disoriented, both by the time—it had been so early when they'd retired, no wonder he was awake again now—and by the play of light and shadow in the room, which robbed the alarm clock's readout of any meaning it might have had. Aaron shut his eyes again for a few minutes, drifting in that black space of awakeness that wouldn't commit itself to the living world.

When he opened his eyes again, the light bothered him less. Reid was precisely where he had been. Another testament to the depth of his sleep; he usually tossed half the night. So far as Hotch knew—they didn't do this that often.

Sharing a bed with a restless sleeper took getting used to, for Aaron. But he needed this, and apparently Reid did, too, although Hotch still didn't fully understand why. He'd been afraid to ask too many questions.

Haley was so efficient—she had to be; she'd been an attorney before Jack, and after Jack she'd needed that efficiency even more—that it was rare to see her truly relaxed. Sleep had always been the one exception. Aaron had loved watching her sleep and seeing the stresses that pulled at her during the day melt away. Her true face came out, gentle and enduring, always the same, and even when he had been slipping into their bed at two in the morning it had helped him to stay connected to her to see it. It let him feel that he still knew her.

A lifetime ago in a drowsy park after a bottle of wine, he'd woken her with a kiss. He'd decided then he wanted to do that every morning of the married life he didn't doubt they were going to have.

_Hey,_ she'd said, smiling up at him.

_Hey yourself_.

Stretching, her hair slipping through the grass. Hadn't even hesitated before asking her for what suddenly seemed so necessary: _Would you mind if I woke you up sometime?_

Slow smile spreading on her face, only just awoken, not yet far from her true face. _Wake me up, huh?_

_Mmmhmm._ Dipping down, kissing her, tasting sleep. _Wake you up. Nicely, of course._

_Oh, I wouldn't mind._

For all his accomplishments, Reid had none of Haley's type-A personality. But he was always in motion. Spinning in his chair, tucking his hair behind his ear, swallowing, conjuring images in the air with his hands, twirling a pen in his fingers. It wasn't just rare to see him still, truly still; even when he was asleep, it simply didn't happen.

He was still now.

Hotch's breath caught as he remembered again how close to the wrong kind of still he'd come. "Reid?" he murmured. Reid didn't stir. His hair had dried in a muss on the pillow, curling around his ear and into the long, smooth hollow of his throat. Hotch brushed it back and remembered photos of Brown's victims. The skin had been greyish and mottled, the bodies inert but without any of the warmth of this suspended animation.

Aaron kissed his forehead. Then his temple. The nape of his neck, where soft hair kept the skin warmer.

Drawing the covers down a few inches, Hotch slipped a hand under Reid's shoulder blade and turned him toward himself slightly. His breathing was a bit thick, but comfortingly stable; Hotch watched the rise and fall of his collarbone in the amber light. He slid one hand down over the long line from shoulder to wrist, found Reid's hand, and moved it to rest on the bare skin of his stomach under Hotch's own. The only reaction was a slight sniff. Reid's face stayed clear.

Hotch kissed him on the lips, very different from Haley's, as he slipped his hand down below the line of Reid's pajama bottoms and brushed at the base of his cock, back and forth. Reid made a soft sleep-sound and shifted. When his mouth fell open, Hotch slipped his tongue in briefly and took Reid's lower lip between both of his own.

Hotch coaxed his bedmate onto his side so that he could spoon against him again. Moving Reid's limbs, heavy and warm, sent a contraction of want through him. Reid was half hard as Hotch slipped his pajama bottoms down and off his hips. Hotch was so hard he felt the ache in his chest.

As he rubbed in slow, steady circles, Reid's body unfurled, legs and feet slipping between Hotch's own and the long muscles of his back releasing. When Hotch covered Reid's erection with the flat of his hand, Reid made a more definite sound, arching back against him like a cat stretching in its sleep.

Reid could be very awkward. He was graceful like this.

As he thrust shallowly against Reid's bottom, Aaron reached up to move aside the golden tangle of his hair and there it was, his true face, perfectly serene, lips parted in pleasure without any taint, something that went beyond the moment and would last forever.

Then Reid moaned, his face contorting in a frown even as he pushed back against Aaron's cock. He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them, blinking muzzily; between the weak light and Reid's myopia and lingering sleep, there wasn't sight in them yet. Reid moved one hand down to press Aaron's tighter against his cock and quested through the bed linens with the other. He made a noise of confusion.

Aaron _needed_. He fastened his mouth on Reid's nape and sucked to raise a mark and wound his fingers through Reid's spare hand. Reid squirmed his fingers free of Aaron's, but thrust into the palm cupping his cock. Torpor made him uncoordinated as he pushed himself up on an elbow and wavered there as if he couldn't decide whether to move toward or away.

Hotch buried his face in Reid's shoulder. _"Reid_. Reid, Reid…_"_

Reid bit his lip and whimpered, and then in the next moment threw his head back as Aaron's fingers found a certain spot.

"Pl–_please_—"

Now _he_ needed, too. And Aaron could provide.

He held back, a long-ingrained courtesy he maintained by the skin of his teeth when a stifled sound forced its way out of Reid's throat. Aaron flexed his hand rhythmically over Reid's shaft as Reid's fingers scrabbled past his to press into his own perineum.

"Shhh," he whispered into Haley's hair, "shhh, shhh, shhhh…"

Reid came all over his hand. His whole body shuddered, his head falling back against Aaron's shoulder to expose his throat as his hips pressed back against Aaron's. Aaron ground against him hard, twice, thrice, and came in the a spatter in his briefs.

There was a long stillness full of their breathing as it returned to normal and the dim light. Reality slowly reassembled itself around him as he watched Reid's damp shoulder rising and falling in front of his face. He swallowed.

The bedclothes rustled as Reid disengaged himself. Hotch saw him pause to slip his pajama pants back up around his waist. Reid swung his legs over the far edge of the bed and crossed to the desk, where he bent to look through the center drawer and found scissors. Then Reid reached up and suddenly the light was gone.

Hotch tried to wrap his mind around what exactly he'd just done while his eyes adjusted to the dark. Soon he could make out Reid, sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to him.

Reid spoke to the opposite wall. "There's a famous problem in logic and cognition. Sleeping Beauty takes a sleeping potion on Sunday. That night, her friend flips a fair coin. There are only two options. If it comes up heads, Sleeping Beauty will be woken up for good on Monday. If it comes up tails, she'll be woken on Monday but given an amnesia pill and put back to sleep until Tuesday, when she'll be woken again." Hotch waited in silence. "Each time she's woken, her friend will ask her what she thinks the probability is that the coin came up heads."

Spencer finally turned to face him. "So what is this? Thursday?"


End file.
